Facility security systems are available from a variety of vendors and installers and can be provided with a variety of features and with various levels of sophistication. Most systems require elections to be made at the time of initial installation. Upgrades or modifications to these systems often involve reconfiguration of the system at added cost, and many of these are limited by vendor-specific accessories provided by or for the original system manufacturer. Typically, the need arises for owners and users of such systems to add zones, specific objects or enclosures to pre-existing installations. Accordingly, there is a need to provide for the extension of pre-existing systems with a maximum of flexibility and a minimum of cost.
The addition of safes, vaults, displays and specific items of property to a secured or protected premises may call for the addition of additional sensors to an existing system and additional enclosures for certain valuable items, such as documents, jewelry, and particularly firearms. It might be desirable to allow such additions to be secured or monitored even when an overall premises alarm is disabled. Furthermore, the manufacture of accessories specially configured for protecting specific articles might not be cost justified where such accessories are compatible with only one manufacturer's security system.
The need to safely secure firearms, for example, has produced a number of specialty products, including, for example, trigger locks, gun safes, gun drawers, gun cases, gun cables, barrel locks, locking gun racks, finger print identifiers, trigger pins and other devices. Each device is intended to make gun ownership safer, but many have undesired side effects that arise from their design or use. Furthermore, essentially all such devices are incapable of detecting unauthorized access to a firearm and alerting an outside authority when the weapon is compromised. Advancements in technology have not been effectively used to address gun safety, and particularly, to provide secure yet convenient gun storage.
The use of alarm systems in securing firearms typically involves the installation of permanent hardware to the facility in which guns are kept. If such features are not included at the time of facility construction or security system installation, expensive retrofitting is required which deters the incorporation of firearm protection into existing facility security systems. Furthermore, providing alarm equipped portable or firearm specific enclosures is complex and costly, further posing an obstacle to those seeking safe gun storage.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,797,405; 5,416,826; 5,598,151 and 5,987,941, for example, are some that disclose security features. U.S. Pat. No. 2,797,405 to Stelter shows facility alarm systems that have been adapted to protect portable containers for valuables. U.S. Pat. No. 5,416,826 to Butler discloses a gun safe that is hard wired to a phone line to notify authorities when security is breached. It discloses detection of emergency and non-emergency conditions and the transmission of emergency and 911 signals over the phone lines. It acknowledges that an alarm signal has been transmitted in prior systems when a gun safe is breached without authorized entry. U.S. Pat. No. 5,598,151 to Torii discloses a firearm security system having the features of the Butler system and contemplating the use of wireless communications. U.S. Pat. No. 5,987,941 to Zocco discloses a wall safe for a firearm and lists a number of features in FIG. 7 that are not explained in detail in the written specification. None of these patents discloses a gun storage system or a system for protecting items in general that makes it easy to take advantage of the features of an existing alarm or security system.
Accordingly, there remains a need for an improved method and apparatus for securing firearms or other valuables or protectables in an alarm-protected facility or in an environment otherwise protected by a security or monitoring system.